The clerk laughed, and made a funnel of one hand. "The banker across the street--Braman." Corrigan bit his cigar in two, and slowly spat that which was left in his mouth into a cuspidor. He contrived to smile, though it cost him an effort, and his hands were clenched. "How many times has he been here?" "Oh, several." "When was he here last?" "Last night." The clerk laughed. "Looked half stewed when he left. Kinda hectic, too. Him and her must have had a tiff, for he left early. And after he'd gone--right away after--she sent one of the waiters out for a horse." "Which way did she go?" "West--I watched her; she went the back way, from here." Corrigan smiled and went out. The expression of his face was such as to cause the clerk to mutter, dazedly: "He didn't seem to be a whole lot interested. I guess I must have sized him up wrong." Corrigan stopped at his office in the bank, nodding curtly to Braman. Shortly afterward he got up and went to the courthouse. He had ordered Judge Lindman to issue a warrant for Carson the previous morning, and had intended to see that it was served. But a press of other matters had occupied his attention until late in the night. He tried the front door of the courthouse, to find it locked. The rear door was also locked. He tried the windows--all were fastened securely. Thinking the Judge still sleeping he went back to his office and spent an hour going over some correspondence. At the end of that time he visited the courthouse again. Angered, he went around to the side and burst the flimsy door in, standing in the opening, glowering, for the Judge's cot was empty, and the Judge nowhere to be seen. Corrigan stalked through the building, cursing. He examined the cot, and discovered that it had been slept in. The Judge must have risen early. Obviously, there was nothing to do but to wait. Corrigan did that, impatiently. For a long time he sat in the chair at his desk, watching Braman, studying him, scowling, rage in his heart. "If he's up to any dirty work, I'll choke him until his tongue hangs out a yard!" was a mental threat that he repeated many times. "But he's just mush-headed over the woman, I guess--he's that kind of a fool!" At ten o'clock Corrigan jumped on his horse and rode out to the butte where the laborers were working, clearing away the debris from the explosion. No one there had seen Judge Lindman. Corrigan rode back to town, fuming with rage. Finding some of the deputies he sent them out to search for the Judge. One by one they came in and reported their failure. At six-thirty, after the arrival of the evening train from Dry Bottom, Corrigan was sitting at his desk, his face black with wrath, reading for the third or fourth time a letter that he had spread out on the desk before him: "MR. JEFFERSON CORRIGAN: